39 replies to this topic

[Wilfrid]

Back in March, I was pleasantly surprised to find Time Out publishing a very plausible list of the 100 Best New York Songs.

I think we more or less liked it.

More venturesome is their new list of 100 Best New York films. Now, this does mean -- they say -- movies "set in New York," and indeed I found some very good films in the list which it hadn't occurred to me, or I'd forgotten, had a New York setting.

So, unlike the songs, the movies are not necessarily steeped in New Yorkiana.

I think it's a good list, not least because -- don't skip ahead -- the two movies I immediately said just had to be included are at number one and two. (And it would have been easy to miss one of them.)

That said, some big personal favorites are missing; and there are some surprises in the rankings. Woody Allen fans may be be pissed; and maybe Scorsese fans, a little.

Please post additions. Very much interested!

[Sneakeater]

I love this dirty town.

[Lex]

It's a worthy list but there some major omissions. Some inexplicable inclusions too.

CHUD? Please.

Kids? - #45? - Ooh. Edgy choice.

Tootsie? - An LA movie masquerading as a NY picture.

Eyes Wide Shut. Ostensibly set in New York, it was really set solely in Stanley Kubrick's imagination. An awful movie too.


OK, on to the omissions.

Prince of the City. Dirty cops caught up in stealing and one by one, betraying each other as they go to jail. Powerful, very disturbing, and wildly underrated.

Without a Trace. Judd Hirsch as a NY detective trying to locate a child kidnapped in Brooklyn Heights. Brilliant in it's small moments as it tracks the divorced parents agony and Hirsch's growing empathy.

Bell Book and Candle. If that bomb Tootsie can make the cut, this great Jimmy Stewart/Kim Novak vehicle ought to be a shoo in. Ernie Kovaks, Jack Lemon, and Elsa Lancaster fill out the wonderful supporting cast.

The Seven Ups - Detectives in the 1970s Bronx. Atmospheric and gritty.

Donnie Brasco. An absolutely brilliant movie, with Johnny Depp as an undercover cop trying to infiltrate the Mob and Al Pacino as a tired Mafia soldier who still dreams of hitting it big. Remember how great Bill Murray was in Lost in Translation when he didn't overact? Pacino, in a stunningly rare performance, underplays his role. The results are wonderful.

My Favorite Year. Hilarious Peter O'Toole as a fading drunken movie star making an appearance on the Sid Caesar show in the 1950s. One of the writers on the show, O'Toole's minder, convinces him to come to Brooklyn for dinner with his mother and her boyfriend at their apartment on Ocean Parkway. Great stuff.

The French Connection - Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as drug detectives in the 1970s. Simply terrific. How the fuck could they leave this off the list? (Oops.)

Honorable mention:

The Wanderers - Bronx street gangs in the 1960s. Uneven but touching.


Wikipedia has an incomplete list of films set in NYC (or more properly, films set in Manhattan. Queens and Brooklyn are left out.) Scan it to find your own glaring omissions.

[Sneakeater]

Wait a minute.

They didn't have The French Connection?

Are they tripping?

[Sneakeater]

If they don't have that, they probably also missed The Taking of the Pelham 123.

Morons.

[Sneakeater]

They have My Man Godfrey, don't they?

I'm getting worried.

[Sneakeater]

DO THEY HAVE THE SEVENTH VICTIM?

IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE SEVENTH VICTIM, I'M EVEN LOOKING AT THAT LIST.

[Lex]

Wait a minute.

They didn't have The French Connection?

Are they tripping?

I screwed up. The do have the French Connection. I'm editing my original post.

[Sneakeater]

(I'm beginning to think they might even have missed Little Shop of Horrors.)

(No. They couldn't have.)

[Sneakeater]

Wait a minute.

They didn't have The French Connection?

Are they tripping?

I screwed up. The do have the French Connection. I'm editing my original post.

THAT'S a relief.

[Sneakeater]

They better have at least one John Cassavetes movie, too.

[Sneakeater]

Do they have Shirley Clark's Cool World or The Connection?

I'm almost too afraid to look.

[Sneakeater]

The Wanderers - Bronx street gangs in the 1960s. Uneven but touching.

Let's face it: the book is indispensable. The movie is all too dispensable.

[Lex]

The Wanderers - Bronx street gangs in the 1960s. Uneven but touching.

Let's face it: the book is indispensable. The movie is all too dispensable.

Oh sure. Pick on me for my sentimental choice (Bronx born and raised) and ignore Donnie Brasco and Prince of the City.

[AaronS]

they missed blast of silence.